Barney Fife’s Guide To Career Success

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As our world spins at a rapid pace and we are at times consumed with work, stress, and ongoing pressures, it is nice to take a break and watch an occasional re-run of the Andy Griffith Show. This 1960’s sitcom set in a small town featuring a sheriff-widower raising his son Opie, accompanied by Aunt Bee, and his deputy Barney Fife. The show is filled with silly situations, this sitcom is best known for the feel-good stories and life-lessons.

Barney Fife was one of my favorite characters on the show. Many viewed him as a bumbling and goofy deputy of whom the sheriff had to humorously intervene. There are plenty of career success lessons that can be learned from Barney Fife.

He Loves His Job And Works Hard At It

“Aw, shucks, Andy; I want to do good on this job. Even if it's just deliverin' messages, I wanna do it right.”

Barney is very dedicated to his profession, job and worked very hard at it. There are days “loving the job” is as hard as pulling out your own teeth. But sometimes leaving a job doesn’t make sense right now. So find the parts about it that make it fun, intriguing, or fulfilling and hold on to it. Find ways to perfect your craft and up the delivery.

He Took Action

“Nip It! Nip It in The Bud!”

Barney is known for wanting to take action. At times he did so without knowing all the facts, which made some the fixes he got in funny. But from a leadership perspective actively researching facts and taking action is a notable success trait. In industries that are going through a great transformation, identifying opportunities and taking swift action is the only way to go.

He Is Tenacious

Barney may do things wrong but he never gave up. The truth is a common thought today is that success is derived from failure. While failure may persist success is only found when we don’t give up. Ever.

He’s not perfect, learned from a mentor

“…when you are dealing with people, you’d do a whole lot better to go not so much by the book, but by the heart.”

For as much as Barney pursued doing things “by the book”, we saw his imperfections often come out in hilarious form. In the workplace, our imperfections at times are scrutinized, ridiculed or judged by others as if anyone is perfect. The truth is there is no policy, procedure or standard that completely removes any imperfections we have. Instead of focusing on preventing our human flaws there is a competitive advantage to leveraging and learning from them. In this clip below it really isn’t about perfection, but instead about our character.

Life and success lessons from The Andy Griffith Show are timeless. There is a lot to take away from a series such as this. Even more important, sometimes our solutions can simply be found with patience, understanding, trust, and mutual respect.

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Tresha Moreland

Tresha Moreland is a 30-year organizational effectiveness and strategic workforce planning expert. She partners with business leaders to develop workplace strategies that achieve best-in-class results. She has held key organizational leadership roles in multiple industries such as manufacturing, distribution, retail, hospitality, and healthcare. Tresha is the founder and principal consultant of HR C-Suite, LLC (www.hrcsuite.com). HR C-Suite is a results-based HR strategy resource dedicated to connecting HR with business results. She has received a master’s degree in human resource management (MS) and a master’s degree in business administration (MBA). She has also earned a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), Six Sigma Black Belt Professional (SSBBP) Certification. She is also recognized as a Fellow with the American College Healthcare Executives with a FACHE designation.